Broncos defense coming together at right time

Juggled squad playing better heading into AFC playoffs

Denver Broncos defensive end Jeremy Mincey (57) hits a blocking dummy during practice for the football team's NFL playoff game against the San Diego Chargers at the Broncos training facility in Englewood, Colo., on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
(
Ed Andrieski
)

ENGLEWOOD -- The story begins with No. 54, with a 24-year-old nobody. His name is Brandon Marshall. His Wikipedia page doesn't even have a photo, and on Dec. 29, he was playing for the Broncos.

Playing five days after being promoted from the practice squad, where he spent the season's first 16 weeks.

Playing on defense, not even special teams, albeit in garbage time.

This season, the Broncos defense has been plugged with replacements, caulked with other teams' castoffs. There's a defensive end who doubles as a rapper and was cut by the flailing Jaguars in November. There's the NFL's lone remaining XFL player. There's undrafted players and rookies, and there's Marshall.

He got his improbable shot, and on a defense with its sights realistically set on the Super Bowl, and if that sounds crazy, then you haven't been paying attention.

By the numbers, the Broncos defense -- ranked 19th in yards allowed opponents this season -- doesn't even deserve to make the playoffs, except that these playoffs are teeming with poor defenses: the Patriots, the Chargers, the Colts. The Broncos have a chance. In fact, the odds are in their favor -- even if the numbers aren't quite.

Let's start with 21, as in 21st, as in the ranking, in terms of yards allowed, of the 2006 Colts defense. That's the year Manning won his Super Bowl, not after 2002, when he had the eighth-best defense, or 2007, when he had the third.

Advertisement

Not in 2012 with the Broncos, when VonMiller and company vaulted Denver's defense to second-best in the NFL in yards allowed.

"When he was with the Colts at times they were depleted, but Peyton Manning always seemed to elevate the players that were available to play," Herm Edwards, former NFL cornerback and coach and current ESPN analyst, said.

It's a two-way street, though. Manning's presence often redefines the approach his defenses face. Teams have learned that the way to beat Manning is to run, run, run and keep the quarterback off the field while further exhausting his team's defense. Also, paying Manning and his high-flying offense can mean less money for defense. The financial concern hasn't really been the case in Denver, though, where instead it's been fax machines and ACLs, marijuana, compartment syndrome, a seizure and more. It's been weird.

"We're still professionals," said defensive end Shaun Phillips, who earned a starting job at Robert Ayers' expense. "It's 'next man up. We have a bunch of guys eager to play football and who love learning to play football. We all piggyback on each other and help each other."

Which brings us to the next number: four. That's how many players who will start in Sunday's game against the Chargers were expected to be starters this season. Only linebacker Danny Trevathan, safety Duke Ihenacho, defensive tackle Terrance Knighton and cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie topped the depth chart back in the summer, and the defense's two leaders, Wesley Woodyard and Champ Bailey, are relegated to specialized roles because of lingering injuries.

Then there's the injury. The big one. The one that if you'd told anyone about a year ago, they'd have said it would break the Broncos. It's Miller's ACL. No matter the suspension, no matter his slow easing back in, there's no way around it. Chargers coach Mike McCoy spelled it out as clear as day on Wednesday.

"Von is one of the best players in the league," he said. "He's very talented."

Edwards expounded: "He's a threat," he said. "He's a guy that you're concerned with, because he can come off the edge, and this is a game where when you open up the formation to create matchup problems for your defense, the way you counter is you have to have an edge guy."

Even so, the loss might not doom them. Miller made five sacks in eight games of 2013. The rest of the defense made 35, giving the Broncos 41, not quite last year's league-leading 52, but still a perfectly respectable number, good for 13th in the NFL and just above league average. The rest of the defensive line apart from Miller did more than step up, in 2012, the line minus Miller (and including Elvis Dumervil) made 33.5 sacks, fewer than this season.

So the pressure has been there. The coverage just hasn't, at times, and a run defense that was the best in the NFL to start the season -- at least on paper -- fell off to seventh in terms of yards allowed. There were moments mid-season where this looked bad -- very bad -- but even if three of the Broncos' final four opponents had losing records, Denver's defense finished strong.

Against the Titans in Week 14, the defense allowed 254 yards, the fourth-fewest Tennessee had put up all season. The next week against the Chargers, despite the loss, it allowed only 337, the Chargers' fourth-fewest of the year, as well, and the same held in Week 16 with their 240 yards allowed to the Texans. Then, in Week 17, Oakland managed only 255 yards, its second-fewest of the season.

It's not a perfect indicator of improvement -- one could argue that Oakland and Houston, at least, had checked out -- but it's something. According to Knighton, it's the start of something.

"The defense is at a point right now where we're ready to prove that we can be a great defense and get us to this championship," he said.

"You play hard in the regular season to put yourself in a good position for the playoffs. It's the reason why it's called the regular season and the postseason. It's two different seasons. We have to play at an elite level to win the Super Bowl, and that's what we're going to do."

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story